


Homecoming

by wheel_pen



Series: Nicobar [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, BDSM, M/M, Nicobar, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 13:32:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4878730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has been away on a trip and slave John meets him at the door when he returns, though the welcome is not quite what either of them expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> The bad words are censored. That’s just how I do things.  
> This story is set in a fictional modern country where slavery is legal. There is a huge disparity between the very rich, who sequester themselves in luxurious compounds, and the rest of the population.  
> Inherent in slavery and other forms of subjugation are dubious consent, unhealthy relationships, and violence.  
> I hope you enjoy this AU. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play in this universe.

_Are you back?_ John texted Sherlock. _Can I see you?_

There was a pause that felt long to John, during which increasingly elaborate scenarios of what Sherlock was doing darted through his mind. _What’s wrong?_ Sherlock finally sent back.

_I’m pregnant_ , John replied, grinning foolishly to himself. _Just kidding!_ he added after a moment, with a smiley face. _Just wanted to see you._ Sherlock had been gone from the compound over a week.

John imagined Sherlock rolling his eyes disdainfully as he typed his reply. _Come to my room_ , he invited. Well, really it was a summons.

_Now?_

John left the slave quarters, setting off no alarms as he did so, which he was told he would if he left without someone’s permission. Therefore Sherlock must’ve given him permission. He was always conscientious about following that rule, even if he disregarded all the others.

John knocked on Sherlock’s door and it opened right away, as if he’d been standing there waiting, and Sherlock swiftly pulled him inside and backed him up against the door, a curious and critical look on his face. John didn’t let it faze him.

“G-d, you’re warm,” he remarked, patting Sherlock down. His dark curly hair was slightly wilted, his pale face had a thin sheen of perspiration, and there was a very faint scruff over his jaw and upper lip of an intriguingly ginger color. “You’re not sick, are you?” John asked, concerned now.

“I’ve been outside,” Sherlock informed him.

“Oh, of course.”

“I’ve been traveling.”

“Right.” He seemed to be building towards something.

“You texted me within _moments_ of me entering the compound,” Sherlock went on. His sky blue eyes were bright as he scrutinized John. “How did you know I had returned?”

John slid his hands up to Sherlock’s shoulders, savoring for one brief moment offering the other man a touch of mystery. It was so rare. “I bribed one of the gate guards to tell me when you returned,” he finally admitted, causing Sherlock to roll his eyes. “He quite likes the chocolate chip biscuits Molly makes.”

Sherlock turned away abruptly, striding towards his bedroom. “Bring my bags,” he commanded, and John found two rolling suitcases beside the door that he started dragging along. “Molly’s biscuits, but _you_ got to meet me?” he heard Sherlock say from around the corner.

“Yeah, we flipped for it,” John claimed. This was actually true. Molly had made the biscuits but John had delivered them to the guard and made the deal; they had done their research carefully, choosing a guard who would go for food rather than sexual services. It was all very _Mission: Impossible_.

Definitely not enough intellectual stimulation around here.

“I can never tell when you’re joking, John,” Sherlock commented with a tinge of disapproval. He was stripping his damp clothes off in his bedroom, scattering them carelessly, and John grinned.

“Yeah, I know. Should I—“ He indicated removing his own clothes.

“Yes, John, I think that would be best,” Sherlock agreed patronizingly.

“Right.” Point of being here, after all. “So where did you go?” He tried to be a little neater with his own clothes, draping them over a chair.

“India.” Sherlock marched naked into the bathroom, into the little closet that held the toilet, and shut the door. John decided to be grateful for that, even if the mutual disrobing had been rather mechanical. After a moment the toilet flushed and Sherlock emerged, heading for the shower stall. It was ridiculously huge, like what you would find in a small locker room—stone walls with an open doorway and multiple showerheads, even benches inside. It could, and had, fit several people comfortably.

John wandered into the bathroom hesitantly. “India, huh? Were you on a case?” He felt vaguely ridiculous engaging in small talk while standing there naked; he suspected Sherlock’s advice would be, stop trying to make small talk.

The shower turned on and Sherlock stuck his head back out. “Are you coming in?” he invited pointedly.

“Oh, right.” That was more like it. John stepped into the shower, where Sherlock was already being drenched by the showerhead, and started to sidle up to him. “J---s!” he exclaimed, jerking away. “The water’s ice cold!”

Somehow, even with water sluicing down his face and matting his hair, Sherlock gave him a disdainful look. “I’m _warm_ , John, as you so astutely observed,” he replied. “Perhaps your vast medical knowledge would suggest another solution?” John huffed a little, though no one could huff like Sherlock, and wondered if maybe he should’ve let Molly win the coin toss. “Turn the other faucet to whatever you want,” Sherlock told him, less sharply.

Okay, so, just taking showers. That was alright, as build-ups went. The showers in the slave quarters were perfectly adequate, but on the tepid side and John tended to be brief and efficient. Sherlock’s shower was a luxury, with glorious hot water cascading down around him and exotically-scented shampoos and soaps that worked up massive piles of lather. Molly liked soaking in the separate whirlpool tub, for her part, but that was a bit dull for John.

He kept an eye on Sherlock, lest he miss something important the other man was doing. It seemed to be fairly standard shower activities, though at one point he just braced his hands against the wall and let the water course down his slim, pale back. Still cold when John reached out to catch some.

“You alright?” John asked, before he could think better of it. He cringed in anticipation of Sherlock’s caustic reply.

“I’m tired.”

John blinked dully at the unexpected remark and stepped from under his own shower to hear better. “Did you say you’re tired?”

“Your comprehension must be improving, John.”

“Not too tired for sarcasm, though,” John noted dryly, walking carefully across the pebbly floor to get a better look at Sherlock. With his closed eyes preventing distraction, John noticed the dark circles under them, and the effort it took Sherlock to straighten back up. It was disquieting; he never thought of Sherlock as entirely human, someone who was _capable_ of being tired. It was also, contradictorily, reassuring.

“Shall I wash your hair for you?” John offered, seeing Sherlock gaze at a bottle of shampoo as if it was a fifty-pound weight.

The suggestion didn’t exactly startle Sherlock, but it seemed a bit alien to him. “Alright,” he agreed warily, and John sat him down on one of the benches at the best angle he could manage.

“Here, hold this over your eyes,” John instructed, handing Sherlock a dry washcloth. He was having flashbacks to his grandmother washing and cutting his hair when he was left alone with her as a child—not really congruous with his present situation.

“Why?” Sherlock asked, not doing as he was told.

“To keep the soap out of them.”

This seemed to peeve Sherlock. “John, I assumed your offer meant you were adequate to the task!” he chided sharply. “Shall I summon a professional instead, who will not get soap _near_ my eyes?”

John looked at him with exasperation and saw, for an instant, a pouting child. “You’re just tired and cranky,” he declared matter-of-factly, dropping the washcloth over Sherlock’s face. “Hold it there or not, your choice.” He squeezed out some shampoo and began lathering up Sherlock’s dark curls, a far more satisfying experience than his own hair, which was kept only slightly longer than a military crop by the local barber. With a loud sigh Sherlock held the washcloth in place.

As he got into it John slowed his motions, luxuriating in the feel of the longer strands slipping through his fingers. He never got to play with Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock was always in charge; even if John was acting _on_ him, it was always expressly for Sherlock’s pleasure, and never for his own curiosity. Unconsciously he inched nearer, in between Sherlock’s knees that parted for him, bringing the other man’s face closer and closer to his chest.

Suddenly John felt a stinging on his hip and looked down to see that Sherlock had pinched him. “ _Rather_ thorough job, don’t you think, John?” he asked. He did not have the energy for full-on snideness, it seemed, or he didn’t think John was worth spending it on.

“Alright, just trying to make it nice,” John claimed, stepping back. “You can rinse it out.” He didn’t miss the slightly slow way Sherlock rose and turned back under the spray—for anyone else it would have been normal, but Sherlock usually had an elegant quickness about him, impatient as he was with the mundane activities of life. Clumps of foam slid down Sherlock’s back and thighs and swirled down the drain. “Er, conditioner?” John asked, trying not to get distracted.

“No. This has taken long enough,” Sherlock judged, which John chose to take as a general comment and not a complaint about his own efforts.

Once sufficiently rinsed Sherlock abruptly shut off his shower and swiped a towel across his face, then draped it loosely around his hips before stepping out of the stall. John quickly followed suit, shuffling across the tile floor on a towel so he didn’t slip. A pair of mirrors faced the shower, each with their own sink, counter space, and storage cabinets—plenty of room for an elegant couple to ready themselves without getting in each other’s way, John imagined.

Sherlock preferred the one on the right. “Brush your teeth,” he instructed John, pointing to the other sink. A few toiletries sat there for visitors.

They seemed unmoved since the last time John had used them, which cheered him. “Do you remember which toothbrush was mine?” he asked, more to engage Sherlock than because the question was of such monumental importance to him. “I can’t remember if Molly used the blue one or the green one—“

Sherlock, who was about to start brushing his own teeth, gave him a predictably disdainful look. “Considering the amount of bodily fluids we share, I hardly think it matters,” he declared.

John grinned at what he interpreted as acknowledgement of their closeness—physically, yes, of course, but did you share your toothbrush with just _anyone_? Well, it wasn’t _Sherlock’s_ toothbrush he was sharing, he reflected, it was Molly’s. But still.

They brushed their teeth. Sherlock was very thorough. It was nice to know his mouth was clean, knowing the way he used it. John kept pace, now wondering what he would be in the mood for. Nothing especially energetic, he guessed. Maybe John could come up with something that would require little effort on Sherlock’s part, if he could be convinced to lie back and relax.

Finally Sherlock rinsed and John did the same. The little scene felt very domestic, almost cozy. Maybe not the way Sherlock basically ignored John as he toweled off again, and if John had any say in the household arrangements he would chide Sherlock for simply tossing his unwanted towel aside on the floor. Good thing he had zero say, then. He hung his own towel up neatly, though.

Sherlock crawled under the blankets on the bed, curling up on his side and closing his eyes. “Turn the lights off, John,” he ordered.

John blinked at him in confusion. “What are you doing?” he asked dully. It was fairly obvious, he supposed, just disappointing.

“I’m going to _sleep_ , John,” Sherlock replied, perfectly capable of acidity even with his eyes closed. “I’m jetlagged and the transport requires rest. If that’s too tedious for you, you may leave. But turn the lights off.”

John switched off the lights, including the ones at the fake windows that gave the illusion of sunlight. He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen them off before—he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Sherlock _sleep_ before, either. Usually John drifted off with Sherlock still awake, and he was up and gone when John awoke.

Turning off all the lights not unexpectedly made it quite dark in the room, and John immediately stumbled over the suitcases and swore.

“John!” Sherlock snapped suddenly, as if this was the last straw.

“Sorry, the suitcases—“

“ _You_ put them there, John,” Sherlock growled. John pictured an animal lurking out there in the dark. “Move them out of the way.”

“Okay, right.” Ignoring his bruised shin John pushed the suitcases back towards the window—of course he still couldn’t see anything, but no one was likely to trip over them on the way to the loo. Then, trying to be quiet and not hit anything else, John made his way back to the bed, disoriented by the total darkness. Naturally he ran into the mattress with a jolt.

“Sorry, sorry,” he told Sherlock, when what he wanted to do was swear again. Swearing would more adequately express his feelings of pain and disappointment.

A hand grabbed his, startling him. “John, are you staying?” Sherlock asked in a level tone.

“Er, do you want me to?” It would be challenging to locate his clothes in the dark.

“Yes, I would like you to stay,” Sherlock replied, paradoxically releasing his hand. “But you may leave if you prefer, or if you need to tend your injuries.”

John grinned. “I’m not really injured,” he claimed, pleased that Sherlock had noticed. He was pleased he wanted him to stay as well. And also pleased he was being given a choice. All around uptick in mood, actually.

“Then get in the bed, John,” Sherlock told him deliberately, as if he was a slow child.

John did so, feeling Sherlock curl up against him warm and relaxed. Carefully he put his arms around the other man, nosing his damp curls. “You’ll get cold,” he murmured, as Sherlock was barely draped in a sheet.

“If I become uncomfortable,” Sherlock muttered against him, “you may cover me more.”

“Okay.”

“I will require approximately three hours’ sleep,” Sherlock warned him. “Can you be still for that long?” Clearly he doubted.

“Yes, I’ll be still,” John promised. “You can sleep longer if you want.”

“Unnecessary.”

“Okay. Goodnight.”

“It is three in the afternoon, John,” Sherlock couldn’t help but correct.

“Well, I—“

“Cease talking.”

John ceased talking. And he remained still. After a few minutes he felt Sherlock’s breathing even out and he preemptively pulled some more blankets up around him. Then he closed his eyes, trying to get some sleep himself—no doubt he would need it when Sherlock awoke. How many others would he let sleep here with him, John thought to himself, and how many others would _want_ to? Maybe that question should bother him more than it did.


End file.
